Tuesday, November 29, 2011

After 3 years in this studio I'm moving out, so to
acknowledge my time here and the work produced I'd like to invite you to
come see the beautiful space and my work.
At the moment I'm working towards a exhibition in Queen Street Studios
Belfast in January, so there's plenty of work on the go! Please see
below for further details of exhibition...

The building is
AMAZING, so bring along anyone interested in Architecture, History and
Art... The building and street has a long tradition with artists, No.7
is now home to 9 artist studios, I'll confirm other names if they want
to open their doors too...

Rothko revered the communicative abilities of Art and the shared space
between the Artist and Audience.‘I want to put you back in’ is a quote
that relates to his practice and the impact of the spacial environment
he created.

Keehan’s research into Rothko, Phenomenology and Painting
Environments has brought her to this two part exhibition. The first part
is an introduction to the process of the ‘Blue’ paintings by inviting
people into her studio in an Open Studio, 3 December 2011. This, the
primary environment of the paintings, is unfinished and a little crude.
The audience witness the Blue Lighting, the ‘tent’ set-up under which
the work is produced, as well as seeing the basic painting techniques
used.

The second part of the exhibition is at Queen Street Studios. Here
the ‘Blue Paintings’ are exhibited in a bright, clean gallery space.
Removed from the components of their production, the paintings create
their own blue impact and generate a submersion into the painting
environment.

The two venues of the exhibition are in two separate cities,
enforcing their divided stages. This is a step further from Keehan’s
‘Blue Studio Project’ exhibition in Berlin 2010, where both studio and
gallery were in the same building though staged six months apart.

I Want To Put You Back In, also refers to the placement of
objects in the Still Life and the objectless Still Life. The satin
backdrop is the principle object in the paintings, followed by the Blue
Light. After that tangible objects are placed in and around the picture
plane to further emphasize composition and textures. The sparseness of
objects in this manner, moves the work towards minimalism and the
experimental abilities of realism.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Two fantastically
amazing exhibitions on in the Hayward Gallery- George Condo and PipilottiRist. I’m a longtime fan of Condo, but I guess now
that I have certain questions concerning parts of my painting practice some
thoughts came to me about Condo’s technique. Condo’s use of paint is as
peculiar as the content; some paintings have in parts a heavy use of medium,
maybe liquin. This leaves patches of gloss beside (rather than on top of) matt
areas of oil paint. The unregulated wet and dry look to the paintings can be distracting
due to the reflection of the lights, but when compared to the content it
exaggerates the mania within the composition.

In the large
room, one wall is devoted to portraits. The Salon-style hanging adds to the
Renaissance appropriation of painting styles used by Condo. I feel privileged,
though slightly disturbed, by the glimpse inside his head; meeting the absurd
characters that knock-about within. I particularly like ‘The Psychoanalytic
Puppeteer Losing his Mind’ 1994, ‘Three Armed Man’ 2002, and ‘Escaping Figures’
1998.

Across from this
wall are the three crucifix; Christ with the two thieves. My initial perception
was of how brilliantly he depicted their torment and mania while hanging on the
cross; bursts of colour exploding out of Christ with his bulging eyes, the
other two thieves, equally distorted as the realisation of their slow death.
However I was disappointed when I read that the burst out of Christ was
confetti- I’m sure the poor fella didn’t feel much like celebrating… so I’ll
stick with my first idea that it’s some kind of painful mania bursting out of
his body…

In Room 2, the
walls are painted a burnt umber and fall back completely, which let the
characters pop out. Condo captures the inner crazy in all of these characters. The accompanying text says we all know somebody like them, but
I think it’s more- we all have one of them lurking beneath. I want him to paint me.